A decades-old project has failed more than half the area\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
2015-02-04<\/p>\n
A water conservation project in a remote prefecture of China\u2019s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) begun two decades ago has yet to bring clean drinking water to more than half of the area\u2019s population, according to officials and local residents.<\/p>\n
According to a joint report by the Water Conservancy Office of southwestern Xinjiang\u2019s Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture and the regional Water Conservancy Department, more than one million of Hotan\u2019s two million residents lack potable water, the website Taianshen.net reported recently.<\/p>\n
The conservation report said 20 years after the water project had begun, only 750,000 people in the prefecture had access to clean drinking water, while in areas such as Hotan\u2019s Niya (Minfeng) county, up to 80 percent of the population did not.<\/p>\n
The issue was raised on Jan. 20 at the Third Meeting of the Twelfth People\u2019s Congress of the XUAR, Taianshen.net reported, adding that representatives blamed the shortfall on the water project being designed according to population statistics in 1995, when it was launched.<\/p>\n
Residents of Hotan told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service that most of the infrastructure set up through the project lacked sanitation stations and water was instead being piped directly from reservoirs to people\u2019s homes in the prefecture, leaving residents susceptible to waterborne diseases and other contaminants.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe use piped water in Keriya (Yutian) county\u2014it\u2019s been like that for years, at least five or six,\u201d a Uyghur farmer from the county\u2019s Achal town said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe water source is pretty far away. They build a reservoir and water is brought directly from there through the pipes. It hasn\u2019t been purified or disinfected. There is no facility there and this is a remote town, so \u2026 if there are any waterborne diseases, we are out of luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
The farmer said that a number of years ago, inspectors came to the area and proclaimed the water suitable for consumption, so residents continued to drink it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, we haven\u2019t seen anybody get sick from the water,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A water official in Achal confirmed that his town relied on piped river water that simply had sediment removed from it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe source of our water is from the river\u2014it\u2019s brought to the reservoir where it sits for three or four days and then it is sent to people\u2019s homes by pipes,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have any disinfection process involved here. It is just being sent out after the mud settles out of the water,\u201d he said, before cutting the conversation short.<\/p>\n
Similar methods<\/strong><\/p>\n Further investigation by RFA revealed that similar methods of delivering water had been used in other parts of the prefecture as well.<\/p>\n A police officer in Hotan\u2019s Lop (Luopu) county told RFA that the area\u2019s water sources were reservoirs without sanitation stations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe entire county uses piped water to drink, though I can\u2019t speak for other counties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A female official from the Water Conservancy Office of Qaraqash (Moyu) county said the area uses two reservoirs\u2014one to store water and the other to drain off sediment and transfer water to households.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have specific data with me on the disinfection and water quality standards, however we have inspectors come to test the water,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The official said Qaraqash also has wells, which supply water to the county\u2019s urban centers, while river water is sent to rural residents to drink.<\/p>\n \u201cWe use a disinfection process in our urban centers, but I can\u2019t say for sure whether they do so in the villages, as I have not seen it with my own eyes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said the 1995 water conservation project had done little to improve the lives of Hotan prefecture\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a scam that China\u2019s claim of a clean water project has been realized in the Hotan region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis project has only changed one thing\u2014now farmers are paying for the water that they used to drink for free.\u201d<\/p>\n Scarce resources<\/strong><\/p>\n Uyghurs say they have long suffered ethnic discrimination, oppressive religious controls, and continued poverty and joblessness in Xinjiang despite China’s ambitious plans to develop its vast northwestern frontier.<\/p>\n They say local authorities often allocate water and provide other incentives\u2014including grants for seeds and fertilizers\u2014to Han Chinese farmers who have streamed to the region as part of a growing influx of internal migrants, putting a strain on area resources.<\/p>\n In January last year, experts told RFA that the Xinjiang capital Urumqi is quickly depleting its available sources of water and faces a looming crisis made worse by a rapidly growing population and mismanaged environment.<\/p>\n Reported by Jilil Kashgary for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A decades-old project has failed more than half the area\u2019s population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}